SATurday April 12th at Bowie Baysox - CANCELLED

[echan]

The next event is SATurday April 12th at Bowie Baysox Stadium, Bowie, MD. The on-line reservation system is currently open for members only at this time and as of this time we already have over 50 participants.

THIS EVENT IS FILLING UP VERY QUICKLY. So I suggest you reserve ASAP. We may not even get to the "open reservation" period for non-members.

Ed

[Gonz]

Ed & Kyle,
I registered online as driving my Mustang; however, I had a breakdown last night and won't be able to fix before Saturday.

So i'll be driving a different car from what I registered in, FWIW.

2002 WRX Blue,
STREET tires,
3100 lbs,
220 HP

Don't know if the registration can be changed in advance?

Gonz

[kyle.bowker]

If you need to change your car information, including index multipliers, you may do so at the event. Simply cross out the incorrect information on your backup paper time sheet and write the correct values using blue or black ink. Whichever organizer compiles the results will double check the computer records with the backup paper time sheet to ensure reporting accuracy. If you've made a special notation on your backup time sheet this new information will override the old information you provided when you sent us your RSVP via the website.

[kyle.bowker]

Who do you believe?

NOAA NWS: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before noon, then a chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 73. West wind between 9 and 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

NBC4: Cloudy morning. There may be a brief sprinkle. Temperatures will hold steady around 66. Winds will be 5 to 15 MPH from the southwest. In the afternoon, there could be a few raindrops around the area. Temperatures will rise from 70 early afternoon to the high for the day of 73 at 4:00pm as they drop back down to 71 later this afternoon. Skies will range from partly cloudy to mostly cloudy with 10 to 15 MPH winds from the southwest turning from the west as the afternoon progresses. 0.01 " precipitation at 8am.

FOX5: Cloudy High: 70 Low: 47

ABC7: The risk of showers and thunderstorms will extend into the Saturday morning hours. High of 72.

Capital Weather Gang (washingtonpost.com): 60% chance of showers. Late clearing. Low 70s. Occasional showers are likely through the early afternoon. The Cherry Blossom parade starting at 10 a.m. may be a bit wet. Take that umbrella! By mid afternoon, most rain should taper off.

[Gonz]

I heard the "passing showers forecast" on WTOP radio.

Heard about thunderstorms for Friday, but not for tomorrow.

[PatN217]

Here is NOAA's predicted weather graph for Bowie on Saturday. Doesn't look that dry even in the afternoon.

[gimp]

^^^

Do you work for NOAA? I'm over here at Goddard with NASA. NOAA just recruited one of ours, and quite a good one.

[echan]

Due to the weather forecast, the autox scheduled on April 12th is now cancelled.

We are sorry for any inconvience.

We are now opening the on-line reservation system for the next event, SATurday April 26th.

If you were on the roster for April 12 but not a member, you may reserve a slot at this time for April 26th by using "0" as the member number and typing "was on the roster for April 12." Please note that no one is automatically placed on the April 26th roster. You must make a reservation to be place on the roster.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Again, sorry and hope to see you next time.

Ed Chan

[Wade Chamberlain]

what's the criteria for a cancellation? I mean 40-ish percent chance of rain? I have big slicks and no top...and I was totally stoked to run tomorrow...rain or otherwise.

[ProDarwin]

I'm curious as well. SCCA (I know, I know, CDC is not SCCA) ran last Sunday in 50 deg rain. Hell, CDC had several rain events last year.

[kyle.bowker]

There is no formal criteria or threshold. It's a judgment call based on a variety of factors.

[Gonz]

I'm curious as well. SCCA (I know, I know, CDC is not SCCA) ran last Sunday in 50 deg rain. Hell, CDC had several rain events last year.

SCCA has it's members pay in advance. If we hold an event, and nobody shows up because of bad weather the club loses money.


And after all CDC is more about "fun" than chasing after a yearly trophy. I think I can speak for all the organizers and most competitors that spending 10 hours in the rain is not much fun.

It's a tough call to make 24 hours in advance, but that's the only way to get the word out to everyone.

[echan]

what's the criteria for a cancellation? I mean 40-ish percent chance of rain? I have big slicks and no top...and I was totally stoked to run tomorrow...rain or otherwise.

Weather Channel stated 40% with brief passing showers and I was leaning to hold the event. NOAA stated heavy showers and Thunderstorms with 0.5" to 0.75" of rain (a lot more than just a passing shower). The national radar shows a very large band of showers (from very far South to up North). So I had a feeling that we weren't going to miss at least a moderate amount of rain.

So, back to the question,"What's the criteria for cancellation?" We base our decision on a few factors.

1. Our events are not pre-paid. This policy seemed to be enjoyed by both the participants and the organizers for the following reasons:
a. If a participant doesn't attend, they don't have to pay.
b. If a participant doesn't attend, we don't have to try to refund their entry fee.
c. We don't have to determine if the participant has a legitimate reason to allow for a refund.
d. Pre-payments require either several trips to the bank or a PayPal service charge.
e. By not having pre-payments, we avoid comments, "I sent my check in the mail, why aren't on the list for being paid" (same reason why we renew only in person).
f. Pre-payment takes away some flexiblity that our members have it they can not make the event.

2. Some of our lot owners allow us to have a rain date (e.g. Bowie and Osbourn Park), while others require us to pay for the lot no matter what the weather conditions (e.g. Harry Grove).

3. We will not conduct an event at any location during a thunderstorm. If a thunderstorm occurs, we'll stop and wait for the storm to pass.

So why did we decide to cancel? We did run in the rain several times the last few years. However, all the locations (but one) was at Harry Grove, where our lot fee was spent regardless of weather and no rain date would be made for us. The only other event was at Osbourn Park last year.

As many of us remember, we cancelled an April 2007 event at Osbourn Park (Easter weekend) because of snow, then on the rescheduled day we cancelled due to rain, which it didn't rain. We got so much feedback from that cancellation, that we decided on the third try we would run no matter what. Guess what, it not only rained but poured. The timer had a hard time, the computer got wet and didn't work for 3 days (had to dry out), and all those people that complained...only a handful showed up. Sure maybe some had other things to do, but the lesson the club had that day was that we lost money at the event with less than 50 participants in the rain. If we had to pay for the lot no matter what, then those 50 would at least reduce our sunk cost. However, it didn't have to be a sunk cost. We made that decision.

For this particualr event (April 12th), all the organizers were watching the various forecasts. I then called them this morning and we had to make a decision before noon to notify Bowie. After we all talked about the Pro and Cons (including that we will have another event in 2 weeks), we thought that cancelling the event and using the fee towards another event (to be determine - already sent a request for an additional date) would be the most sensible thing to do.

To be honest, I really hate cancelling any event. I think it hurts our reputation, disappoints a lot of people, and if anything it makes planning a bitch.

I know this is a long explanation. I hope this explanation give some insight on how we made our deicision.

If you have any other comments or questions, please feel free to ask me.

Ed

[FredK]

So it's about money, right?
Fredk

[echan]

So it's about money, right?
Fredk

Money is part of it.
Possibly having an insurance claim is another part of it.
Having lot of wet grumpy people is another part of it.

It really a balance of risk. Obviously if people are wet and not happy, we may not attract people as much in good weather (they may associate us with an unpleasant experience). If we lose our insurance policy, you can kiss the club good bye (one reason why our course designs are very conservative and slower while still fun).

[kyle.bowker]

So it's about money, right?

Haha! Of course! Without a reasonable guarantee that we can collect enough revenue to cover expenses and offset the risks involved there can be no auto-x.

[TubeDriver]

Well, I know of at least one organizer who is really happy she will not be working in the rain for 8 hours in order to get 4 minutes of driving time.

SCCA put on 8 events so a cancellation has a bigger impact. CDC puts on a lot more autoX events so we can err on the side of safety and comfort without ruining anyones autoX season.

Our HPDE will run rain or shine.

[FredK]

First, everyone knows I love the laid back CDC events. My only gripe has always been with the no pre payment. Who does it help. The people who take a spot and decide later if they feel like going. I don't think that's fair to those that ARE going to do the event. A waiting list and a cancel the Wed. before policy is not hard.

I run events with many different groups, and this is the only group that does not have prepay, it's not that hard. My Auto events.com seems to work fine,and/or an annual series fee. Do you guys not want a paper trail? If this some big money laundering scheme, (pay cash), disguised as an autocross club. If the weather is bad or something else comes up you guys are screwed, if everything is great, then everyone is screwed because to many people show up. Shoot me in the head at Manassas, my first morning run was at 2:30 one day last year. I've never gotten home before 8:30 from there. If we prepay then the club knows what to expect, if people don't show for whatever reason then great, either we get more runs, or get to go home early, and we never have this discussion. It's what everyone else does, and they do it that way for some sound reasons. Call it the pussy fee.

It is pouring at "kelley acres"
Fredk

[DrSeuss]

I don't know if this is a valid reason or not but CDC doesn't have a nice timing truck/trailer like SCCA. So there's a good chance of getting laptops and other equipment damaged. Plus the paper records probably get messy.

[ProDarwin]

I do agree with Fred. It probably doesn't bother me as much as it does him though.

I would certainly be willing to pay the paypal fee/online transaction fee associated with registration. Its cheaper than the $2.00 ATM fee I have to pay every event, because I never carry cash.

Being able to anticipate the number of cars much more accurately should help you guys in designing a course of the appropriate length/giving the proper number of runs, etc. etc.

[defylogik]

waking up this morning to blue skies, i have to say i am sad i am not dragging cones under my car around a parking lot today

[echan]

The only real reference I have with pre-payment is with our track days, where the cost is much higher that we have to do pre-payments.

In the case of our track days, we announced the event and opened up the on-line reservation system with specific instructions to send a completed form and payment. Over the next few weeks, the reservation system was filled with over 50 participants, but with only a few payments. I sent out a notice that each participant won't be confirmed and approved until the completed form and payment was sent.

This e-mail helped, but I still have 40 participants that made reservations, which payments were never sent. We also received about 12 participants that sent checks but either didn't send in a completed form and/or never used the on-line reservation. Now we have too many checks (long after closing the on-line system), and I've been sending checks back along with an e-mail. In addition, we have 9 participants which we are holding their checks and placed on a waiting list.

Prepayments work well for the 90% that sign up promptly and correctly. Dealing with the remaining 20% (of which we can only accept 10%) has been (and still is) a major time drain.

Sure PayPal can relieve all the trips to the bank, but we still have to deal with a lot more paper work and a lot more e-mails to participants on their status. In addition, we may have to deal with an individual "denying payment for services not rendered" with a PayPal credit card purchase (I'm jumping ahead a little because one of the main agrument for PayPal is the use of credit cards for those that don't have the money in the bank).

In terms of the payments at the autocross, we always prefer cash. However as far as I know, we have never turned down a participant with a check. We typically get about 4 or 5 checks at each autocross. The only problem is dealing with a bounced check.

A bunch of us share a garage and I pay the rent then people write me a check each month. Over the years, I've experience several bounced checks (from guys I personnally know, that also have tons of money). It's typically some sort of mistake, but the bottom line - its a pain in the butt. When a participant pays cash at the event, it solves many problems. As Travis and Fred pointed out, it also creates uncertainty of how big the field will be.

We typically get 18 to 22 no-shows at an autocross. As a result, we try to over-book by 18 participants. Although 20 may be the average number of no-shows, the standard deviation is a different story. On very nice days when we aren't competing with other events, we have a few as 7 no-shows (on those days, many organizers will often give up some or all of their runs to hasten the day). On bad weather days with other events going on in the summer vaction season, we have had as much as 35 no-shows.

I'm going to stop because this post just sounds like a whine. I just wanted to highlight the issues.

On a side note, it rain super hard in Delray last night (Arlington/Alexandria). This morning it looks clear! I guess we choose poorly...

[mla163]

Looks nice out now. Of course, if the event was still on it would be pouring rain. Damned if you do...

[kyle.bowker]

Yep, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Like Ed, I don't want to sound like I'm whining, so I'm tempted to stop typing right now. But if I may, I'd like to discuss this a little bit more. I understand certain participants' desire to prepay. A prepaid season pass would be a great way for dedicated club members to secure their reservation status and build a strong, long-term relationship with the club. Whether participants purchase a season pass or prepay just a single event, it would appear to provide a more stable revenue stream.

I also know there are just as many people who will sign up, send payment, and then beg for a refund 2 days before the event for a multitude of excuses. If we ever did choose to have prepay auto-x events I'd support a no-refund policy where the penalty for wimping out is simply part of the participants' cost of doing business. The drawback of such a policy is some people will feel cheated and it may force us to push ahead with an event when the safer course of action may be to cancel.

There is a tremendous administrative burden associated with refunds. And although our online reservation system has a wait list function, we choose not to wait listing people for auto-x because in our experience participants rarely follow through when moved from the wait list to the approved roster. Instead of coming out to our event, the person on the wait list instead makes plans to go fishing or whatever other activity competes for their valuable free time.

I have serious reservations about using Paypal because of buyer disputes and chargebacks. Paypal is not a bank with FDIC protections and there have been numerous horror stories about frozen accounts locked up for months for no reason and with no recourse. There are literally hundreds of websites out there filled with complaints about PayPal. I figure we could just black list anyone who attended our event and then filed a "wrongful" dispute through Paypal after the fact, just as we could black list any participant who bounces a check with us. But that is a major hassle and leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

When we first investigated online registration services like DLBRacing we felt they charge too much money (approx $3 / person / event) for what they offer. I checked their website recently and it appears they charge a flat rate of $50 for auto-x registration and $75 for HPDE. However, they do not list the fees for their companion services like permanent number registration and member management which undoubtedly raise the price. Therefore, the approx $3 / person / event cost may still be accurate. At any rate, I do know the exorbitant fee is one reason we developed our own online reservation form. It was a big step up from the really old method of sending an e-mail request to Ed for each event. It is by no means perfect but it is perfectly adequate and is easily customizable to meet our ever changing needs.

Okay, enough jibber jabber. I'm going to head to the NCCBMWCCA Vintage BMW Gathering II at Carpool in Herndon. I hope it's still sunny when I get there! Again, sorry to disappoint you guys (and girls). We appreciate your participation and value your time. Have a great weekend and hope to see you at the next (dry) auto-x.

[Gonz]

I don't know where you guys live, but I was just about to go outside to get some stuff done on my car, and realized it's absolutely pouring outside.

Ten minutes earlier it was SUNNY> Guess I can stay inside and work on my taxes